Last year the road 120 from Mammoth over the mountains down to Yosemite had opened just a few weeks before our visit on June 1st. This year the snow situation is something completely different and my friends who are soon heading out to drive around the west coast, will probably miss out on this route, since they don’t expect the road to open until late June or early July. Las year our plan was firmly planned around this road being open for business and fortunately we got lucky enough to see and experience it in all its glory. The road was open, but the views were still quite wintery along the way. The warmth of Tahoe and Bridgeport felt like a far cry from here, but at this point we still had no idea what was awaiting us down in Yosemite Valley.

In the clear waters of Tenaya Lake we saw a lonesome kayaker. The granite cliffs were constantly surrounding us. All of a sudden a steep rock wall appeared on the horizon. That was Half Dome. My travel companions could hardly believe their eyes and I finally got to see if from this direction as well.

There are so many people in Yosemite nowadays, that we tried to plan our route carefully, it being my friends’ first time visit and all, so that we wouldn’t spend too much time in traffic. First up we headed to Tuolumne Grove to check out some giant sequoias. More about that soon. Stay tuned!